Thursday, September 29, 2011

Are you a mental? Do you watch TV soap operas? Beginning to get the feeling that they are all a little bit formulaic?

Then you are not alone. Scrabbling down the back of the bins at Elstree studio, we found a document, clearly authored by The King of Television, laying down the rules of Soap Operas. And believe you me, they make daming reading.

1. Ian Beale is not allowed to be happy. The moment a smug, self-satisfield smirk appears on his face, Phil Mitchell MUST flush his head down the toilet

2. The Soapshire Constabulary will always arrest the wrong person in a murder investigation. The second person arrested is always the villain

3. Soap weddings will always go wrong, and life in [SOAPTOWN] will never be the same again

4. In a soap funeral, somebody will always fall into the grave

5. Soap drug addicts will always make a complete and miraculous recovery within days, and will never speak of their ordeal ever again

6. Every soap family has a long-lost relative of whom they have never spoken before, but will one day turn up and live with them forever

7. Any tragedy, no matter how many people are killed, will be completely forgotten within days

8. Nobody has a job outside a 200 yard radius od SOAP STREET. If they do, they are portrayed as some hoity-toity yuppie type

9. Anybody can and will run a pub

10. Soap babies remain invisible for their first ten years of their lives, and will then emerge with ISSUES

11. You will end up either murdered, or looking sadly out of the back window of a departing cab. Or both.

12. Everybody buys everything they will ever need from one tiny shop

13. Nobody ever says Fu...

14. Every Christmas somebody will say "This is going to be the best Christmas Walford's ever seen". It won't.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

It's the Rugby World Cup, so let's hear it for rugby! Dozens of university-educated men chasing an egg around a field. Unless you are talking League, then it is dozens of pigeon-fanciers chasing an egg around a field. But did you know?!

1. The sport takes its name from the original ball being made from a load of insects being wrapped up in a piece of old carpet. Hence: RUG BEE

2. The New Zealand All Blacks are well known for their Haka war dance, and at last we can reveal the actual words they are singing: Young man, there's no need to feel down.I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground.I said, young man, 'cause you're in a new townThere's no need to be unhappy...

4. The word "Scrum" is short for "Scrumptious", where the players all get together for a big, manly hug

5. There are three kinds of rugger: Union, League and Bugger

6. All rugby players are required to learn the official rugby anthem: "I'm a stupid dicky-di-dildo", to be sung at all formal rugby occasions

7. The blacksmith from the infamous rugby song of the same name was a prop forward for London Irish. He quit the game in shame after his dreadful "split from arse-to-tit" secret became public knowledge

8. The Womens Rugby World Cup is sponsored by Gilette: The Best a Man Can Get

9. The world of rugby faces a crisis after the bird which lays rugby balls - Gilbert's Auk - was declared an endangered species by the United Nations

10. Rugby League has 13 players instead of the regulation 15 as two participants from each team are required to look after the whippets

11. Rugby Union is regarded as a religion in South Wales. Ironic, as Jesus and his 12 disciples followed the League code as the Judaea Fishermen

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Congratulations must surely go to those white-coated boffins at CERN on their discovery of neutrinos that seemingly travel faster than the speed of light.

This - of course- blows all known physics completely out of the water, and opens the door for all sorts of possibilities, not least warp-speed travel that was once the realm of science fiction, and of course, the ability to travel in time.

Or DOES IT?

All that money spent by what we thought were some of the finest scientific minds on the planet, and for what?

They do realise they were beaten to it by Dr Emmett "Doc" Brown in 1985? And 1955. And 1885.

And all he had was a De Lorean, a shed and a direct line to Colonel Gaddafi.

The fucking wasters.

OK, CERN with your faster-than-light physics. Where are the jet packs and monkey butlers you promised us?

And hoverboards.

And flying cars.

And if you say "they're all travelling faster than light so you can't see them," I will NOT believe you.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The new series of costume drama Downton Abbey is clearly the best programme to be aired on ITV for some time, dragging the flagging broadcaster out of the malaise that has gripped it for some years.

And you've got to hand it to ITV Executives for their rush to capitalise on the so-called Downton Effect by integrating their biggest hit into their other programmes in a bid to push up their ratings. But let's see how they're getting on:

Next Week on The Downton Factor: Dame Maggie Smith nails her version of Cher Lloyd's "Swagger Jagger" and gets through to Boot Camp. "You took that song and you made it your own," says Louis Walsh. "Is that Irish skivvy addressing me?" the Dowager Duchess replies

Next week on Downton Been Framed: Dame Maggie Smith falls on her face trying to skateboard down some steps. £250 to the camcorder-wielding butler. Time-stamp blurred

Next week on Downtonation Street: Dame Maggie Smith mouths the words "Well I never" after finding herself refused service in the Rovers Return

Next week on Downton's Got Talent: Dame Maggie Smith gets through to the live finals with her impressive display of enormous hats and withering looks, whilst ordering a butler to thrash some common oik

Next Week on The Jeremy Kyle Show: Increasing familiarity from the servant classes. Is thrashing and enforced sterilization the answer? (May feature Dame Maggie Smith, depending on work commitments)

Not to be outdone, and mindful that Downton Abbey clashes with its own showpiece drama programme - the spy drama Spooks - plans are already underway at the BBC for their own 'spoiler' scheduling:

Next Week on Downton Spooks: Dame Maggie Smith thwarts an Al-Qaeda plot, complains of their 'deplorable manners' for attacking during high tea

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

"It's as if we were meant to be together," she said, all doe-eyed across the table, "It's kismet."

"The frog," I reply.

She is perplexed. "You what?"

"Kismet. The frog. Kermit's brother. He stayed in the swamp while his famous sibling found fame and fortune in the big city. Married, had loads of little tadpoles, made something of himself in swamp society, but all the time resented Kermit and his high-fallutin' ways, and it all came out in one bitter, drunken outburst at that family get-together of which they never ever speak. 'A pig!' he shouted, 'You married A BLOODY WHORE PIG!' and everybody looked away, embarrassed that he'd gone and shown them all up in front of their famous cousin by doing that 'What's green and smells of bacon?' joke..."

Monday, September 19, 2011

"What this country needs," says a commentard on our local newspaper, "is a spell under military rule. A bit of discipline would sort out these bally rioters and thieving bankers."

I dare say, after pressing "Enter", he turned to his long-suffering wife and said "That told 'em, what?"

So, military juntas, then. A military dictatorship might sound a fine idea in the short term. Crime would be stamped out, and I dare say that thieving bankers would be told not to do it again, and the short back-and-sides and shiny shoes would be enforceable by law as council house chavs will be forced to stop rutting like monkeys in a zoo for a bit of military service. Also, former colonels will turn to their long-suffering wives and say "That told 'em, what?"

But there is a big problem with military governments, and it is this:

FACT: The military are only really any good at one thing, and that is killing people to DEATH. At everything else, not so good. They can't even do their own shopping without spending £100million on a helicopter, or selling their own kids for a box of nails.

And you know exactly what's going to happen. They'll turn up on the first day of the nation's brave new dawn with "Military Communique No.1: Restoring Order and Fighting Crime on our streets", and there will be much rejoicing and smugly satisfied former colonels.

However, history shows us that military governments get rather used to the idea of power, and no matter how temporary they say they are, forty years down the line "Military Communique No. 37,957 On the re-education and re-assignment of counter-revolutionary street poets and revised penalties for breaking haircut regulations" is met with the kind of fixed-grin jubilation you only ever see on North Korean television broadcasts.

And that is why military governments are shit, and I have proved somebody on the internet to be WRONG.

Friday, September 16, 2011

I've seen all three Star War movies. Hell, I've even seen the other three films which were nearly Star Wars movies. And throughout these works of rebel propaganda, I couldn't help thinking that The Imperial Empire comes out of it rather badly.

So, I've asked the question: Was the Imperial Empire ALL bad? And - you will not be surprised to learn - the answer is a big fat NO.

Reasons to love The Imperial Empire

- They got the sub-space transports working on time

- Keeping a firm foot down on Ewoks, which - given the chance - would spread round the galaxy like so much vermin, rutting away like council estate chavs

- Personally signed card from The Emperor should you be lucky enough to reach your 100th birthday whilst taking advantage of the endless work opportunities constructing the Death Star

- Getting promoted at work simply for naming your first-born son "Darth"

- Sorting out those lazy gobshites on Alderaan for once and for all

- Making black sexy again. And the sexier red light sabre makes your average Sith Lord irresistible to the ladies

- Making it socially acceptable to sleep around with clones

- TIE Fighter vs X-Wing? Listen to that engine roar - NO CONTEST. In the Top Gear test, Jeremy Clarkson would chose the TIE Fighter every time

- Being able to find the droids they're looking for, if they could be arsed

Reasons to love The Rebel Alliance

- Off-chance of seeing Princess Leia in the nip, even if she's getting on a bit these days

As you can see, The Imperial Empire wins hands down. Come to the Dark Side. It's lovely, and there's cake

Thursday, September 15, 2011

My sole intent: The liberation of 1 (one IKEA pencil) in order to furnish my home.

Some people walk out of the place with dozens, if not hundreds of the things, but they are missing the point (as it were). All the committed office supplies thief needs is a single, solitary IKEA pencil.

And here are the maths:

The Swedish furniture chain has 313 stores in some 38 countries, employing over 127,000 staff.

Within these stores, according to MATHS, the company has provided 2.67 million million million million million pencils, enough to give 6 million million billion pencils to every man, woman and child on the face of the planet.

Or, to put it another way, one IKEA pencil is EXACTLY the same as repeatedly dissolving the entire company in an unlimited quantity of water, and putting one drop of the water onto a sugar pill.

ONE PENCIL = The entire homeopathic essence of the company

You can take this one homeopathic pencil and use it to furnish your home with the entire IKEA catalogue.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

I'm impressed - in the main - by his principles of passive resistance, to which he stuck by his guns admirably. He also had a theory for long life which essentially boiled down to:

- Vegetarianism- Meditation- Massage

Which is why he made his pile with his chain of Indian veggie restaurants, cunningly named "Fuck off out of India, you English bastards", which gave the diner plenty of time for meditation by leaving a minimum of three hours between each course.

Well, worth the wait, naturally, because each set meal came with a massage and a happy finish.

The inventor of the in-store loyalty card, every tenth rub-and-tug was made even happier by being free-of-charge.

I am prepared to accept that the book about Gandhi may not have been entirely accurate.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Every now and then, you spot a situation vacant on the Guardian Jobs website that raises an eyebrow, and no matter how happy you are in your present post, prompts you to blow the dust off your little-used CV.

However, after fixing my raised eyebrow, I've decided that I don't want to be second in command of Al-Qaeda.

Granted, it's a job for life with a superb pension scheme, but as far as this post goes, "life" is measured in a matter of minutes before getting a Hellfire missile in the face.

This happens at least twice a week, and they're getting through second in commands of Al-Qaeda like nobody's business.

Frankly, that's not the kind of job security one wants, even if all the second in command of Al-Qaeda does is organise the gardening and gets the sandwiches in for the current big boss. So I'm told.

Second in command of Al-Qaeda is therefore the worst job in the world.

Frankly - and looking back three decades into this desolate nuclear winter - it's all been a bit of an embarrassment, what with the world ending, nobody actually noticing, and civilisation going on much as before. You know how these things happen - big hair and shoulder pads all came along at once and everybody got distracted.

As regular readers may remember from a near identical post five years ago, I was fifteen years old and at an airshow at RAF Abingdon on that fateful day, watching the combined might of NATO's air forces celebrating Battle of Britain Day instead of motoring over the Berlin Wall and giving those Warsaw Pact curs a damn good thrashing in the four minutes between the declaration of war and the wiping out of humanity, as foretold in The Prophecy. As the Four Horsemen - Death, War, Famine and Mark Thatcher - road out, I was sitting in the back of a hired Ford Transit van, eating a packed lunch my mum had done for me. A photograph existed, browned at the edges by the flames of the nuclear nightmare.

September 12th ticked over to September 13th, and we all felt a little stupid, not least my friend Richard, who had actual money riding on a bet that the world was going to end. I, callow and easily-impressionable youth that I was, TOOK THAT BET, and had bought entirely into the whole End of the World business, having seen a television programme stating plainly that the world was due to end by the end of 1981. As prophets and prophecies go, I now know for a fact that Frank Bough and Nationwide might not have been up there with Nostradamus. Hindsight, eh?

Now, thirty years on, I ask: Have we learned from the past? And I am sad to say that it has not. Sadly, the world got its nuts trapped in a vice and ended AGAIN three weeks ago in a cloud of vapour that would have had even the crappiest of End Times preachers punching the air with delight, if there had been any actual air left to punch. A belligerent China rushed to North Korea's defence, and a limited nuclear exchange suddenly became a superpower confrontation with all-too-predictable results. Everything gone. Humanity. Civilisation. Every single life form on the face of the planet, even the single-cell amoeba and the celebrities.

And once again, no-one noticed. Not a soul. And the reason (as foretold in the prophecy): JEDWARD IN THE BIG BROTHER HOUSE

Friday, September 09, 2011

Stuck for a compelling read, I read the Reading and District phone book ("Book of the year" - Paul Ross) from cover-to-cover, but got bored and skipped to the last page.

Spoiler Alert: Zachary Z. Zzyzz did it.

You'd think it was Dave Voldemort - but he's a red herring who disappears as the work reaches its thrilling climax.

Also, don't get too attached to the Aaron A. Aardvark character - you don't see too much of him after the first page, and some of the characterization is shocking in the extreme.

However, despite a lack of a coherent plotline that makes it read like Brett Easton Ellis, there's a nice musical aside about the Smiths about three-quarters of the way through, just as you're beginning to despair.

Then, still bored out of my skull, I counted the perforations on a teabag. 1997 on one side, 1996 on the other. Obviously, they've sold me a factory reject, and I shall demand a refund in the strongest possible terms.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

I find myself - once again for reasons too depressing to elaborate - in some sort of management seminar.

Whilst fully expecting low-hanging fruit to be plucked, one can only expect the worst...

And, as is often the case, some far-too-happy woman with frizzy hair bounds up to the lectern and lets out that kind of whoop you only ever hear on unconvincing advertisements for male grooming products.

"Stand up!" she bellows, and dozens of bewildered attendees rise to their feet, not knowing why they obey.

"Now! Let's all have a shakedown and banish those Monday morning blues!" - And she leads us through a series of bizarre exercises to The Birdie Song, designed to bring the "Fun" into the "Funnily enough, I don't want to be here either."

I, on the other hand, have decided to sit this one out, and Ms Frizzy isn't pleased, and points at me through the room full of suited whirlish dervishes.

Sunday, September 04, 2011

WAR. It is HELL. As you may or may not care, I've been putting up pics on our local noticeboard, only for them to be ripped down within a matter of days by the board's self-appointed guardian. This time, it's personal...

1. Pin smaller pic to noticeboard

2. Pin larger pic on top

3. My sworn enemy who clears down the board will be the ONLY person to see the smaller pic

Friday, September 02, 2011

And she's right. They may make one or two nice tunes, but as far as their foo fighting promise goes, they have let us all down badly.

Face facts: The Foos aren't the only band to do this. They've all lied to as at one time or another, and I'm amazed that people still believe a single word our so-called music idols say any more.

- Radiohead: Not one bizarre human/radio hybrid, the result of a cruel medical experiment, in the band.

- The Cars: Each and every one of these middle-of-the-road 80s rockers is NOT A CAR. See also A Flock of Seagulls

- Orchestral Maneouvres in the Dark: Paid good money to see these charlatans, and not an orchestra to be seen. And I should know - because THEY LEFT THE LIGHTS ON

- The Weather Girls: Actually presented financial news on a local TV channel. GET A GRIP

The Cure: I had high hopes for these guys, and hoped they could do something about a nasty rash on my leg. But, after repeated listens, the rash is still there, and the only cure that Fat Bob Smith knows is for allergies to tasty, tasty pies and cake. I shall write to the BMA and get these quacks struck off immediately

- Big Country: Not Big, Not Cu...s

So, the next time your favourite band makes promises they cannot keep, don't say you weren't warned.

Thursday, September 01, 2011

There is nothing more disconcerting when you are trying to squeeze one out on the office toilets than to listen to the person in the next cubicle down having a telephone conversation whilst you are trying to go about your business.

In fact, it goes against all rules of toilet etiquette and should be stamped out forthwith.

Disgusted to the point that I was angry to the point that I NEARLY said something, I instead opted for a few nearly passive aggressive spoiler tactics

- Flush three times

- Parp as loudly as possible

- Aim for a bigger splash

- ...followed by a relieved "Jeeeeesus!"

- Knock on the partition wall and ask if they have any paper I can borrow

- Sing a song. "All the single ladies" gets you there

- Flush twice

- Say "Get off the phone, darling and come back to bed"

- Flee

Then, watch toilet door from discrete distance, to found out who this BLASPHEMER might be, and pity the fool

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